At fourteen, she was growing into the beginnings of a self-assured woman, their mother being something of a model for how to present one’s outward appearance no matter her nurturing skills. Charles endeavored to encourage that streak of confidence in her, but it remained a work in progress.
The associates and partners might not come here, but their investigator did. Which was how she knew of it in the first place, of course.
Nate had never particularly sought happiness; he had always believed his destiny lay more in the realm of duty, in service, in something greater than himself. But he had found it nonetheless, here with Brad, here in the life they had built together. )
Bryan sat at the bar, nursing Maker’s and surveying the room.
The first day Brad walked into Langley, he took a deep breath of recycled air and spent twenty minutes trying to find the bathroom.
Kensi grinned. “Two for one pitchers and a round of shots on me,” she said.
Seeing yourself in someone else.
“No,” he said, adjusting his tie back to perfection and smoothing down his collar. “I’m not fucking you for the first time in the back of a car like some horny, uncultured teenager. I don’t care if it’s a Town Car, that’s just too crass.”
The funny thing is, Tony–Victor–Victor-Tony can remember being a doll. He can remember the, well, the doll architecture, being blank, being simple. Sometimes she watches him go back into it, center himself or something. It makes it easier on him to be here, when he doesn’t have all his–life. All his life weighing him down.
Amanda had always found flexibility to be conducive to her function.
Their flat couldn’t seem to get warm at all.
Maura walked around to the side of the bed, every step a saunter and sway that couldn’t help but draw Jane’s attention. She placed one hand on the bed, next to Jane’s waist, and bent down so their heads were close together. ‘I’m talking about force tactics, Jane,’ she whispered, some heady scent coming from the heat of her skin. ‘How about we turn the tables?’
The black-and-whites who met them at the ranger station took the perp away, and Steve pulled out a roll of plastic sheeting from the back of his truck. Danny made some unimpressed crack about serial killers and Steve pretended that he couldn’t hear him through the buzz of the rain. They sat on the plastic in silence except for the calm voice of the KHPR news announcer over the radio. When they got back to the station they squelched towards the locker room, and even Steve had to admit that this wasn’t the most pleasant way to bust a coke-smuggling ring.
It hadn’t taken much, through the gossipy dancer’s grapevine, to learn that Javier–Javi, he liked to be called–had taken on teaching a couple of classes at a studio out in Silver Lake. Lyrical hip hop on Tuesdays, the class David was in now, and B-Boy Basics on Saturday mornings. David was willing to do a lot of things for his first year trying out for If You Know You Can Move, but there was no way he was going to try to hold his entire body up by one lean arm.
It makes you want to fuck, and when you can’t fuck, you find a way to fuck shit up instead.
Sherman. Not Ben. And that–that too-familiar slip of the mind–was exactly why he’d booked it out of there this morning without telling Sherman where he was going.